


The Gods of Kings and Men

by Beewritesstuff (Mimispace)



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 13:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6197641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimispace/pseuds/Beewritesstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Osiris, the Reborn<br/>Hathor, the Hospitable<br/>Bast, the Sensual<br/>Ra, the Sunbright</p><p>A very lighthearted fix-it fic for the original Yu Gi Oh series. Uses a combination of Japanese and American names/nicknames, and has about as much canon continuity as the second part of sao;) </p><p>Filth filth filth, honestly. Might see more here as I get ideas, or this might stand alone. Who knows, not bee</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gods of Kings and Men

**Author's Note:**

> Boy golly gee are the tenses in this screwed up.
> 
> I'll get around to fixing it. Sorry guys.

 

1.  **Osiris**

In those last moments, a timeless haze of light between life and death, when Yugi and Atem stood alone in a place far from existence, Atem had confessed quietly,

“I’m afraid.”

And at first, Yugi couldn’t believe it, couldn’t possibly believe that this spirit, this… _being_ that had overcome a nightmare incarnate and brought the world back from the brink of hell could possibly be scared, until he finally drew the courage to look, really look, through the blinding light of creation and see his friend framed there in a doorway-that-was-not.

His first idiot thought was how _startlingly_ young Atem looked. He’d always been so large, filling so much extra space in Yugi’s soul until it had grown to fit him. His confidence in existence and his wisdom in learning had lent him an air of agelessness like a beautifully carved statue, reducing appearance to little more than an afterthought, and Yugi was honestly taken aback that they were basically the same age.

Atem sighed and ran a hand back through his wild mass of hair, actions that seemed so out of place for their surroundings but so _painfully_ familiar that they almost made Yugi choke, but he’d still managed to get the words out-

-“Why are you scared, Y-Atem? You’re…you’re free. It’s done, you did it. Everyone is safe because of you!”

And Pharaoh Atem, Unifier of Egypt, Son of the Sun with Golden-Wings, finally met Yugi’s eyes for the first time since the duel. The look in them was so unlike, yet so impossibly like, the Yami that Yugi had known, that it gave him enough confidence to step forward toward that terrible, beautiful portal. Atem threw up a hand in warning, but Yugi was no fool. There was nothing for him through that doorway, not yet. But now at least, he was close enough to not be blinded. To see clearly, maybe for the last time.

“Why’re you afraid, um, Pharaoh?”

Atem curls his lip at the title, not meeting Yugi’s eyes, but his face was soft. Sad.

“My name is forgotten, my people are dead. What home is there for me in death? Who will remember my name in the morning, so that I may feel the sunlight?”

The words are old, old-old-old and Yugi can feel, somehow, like an echo of their old bond, a shuddering hopelessness come from the other man. It burns him like a brand.

“Tell me what to do, I’ll remember you! My friends will too! Hell, I’ll _graffiti_ your name across town, I’ll get it added to every religious ceremony in the country…”

There’s a fear, hot and heavy in Yugi’s gut, and it bolsters him.

“We’ll get a display added to the museum, to every museum with an Egypt display, telling people what to do…you know tourists, they’ll do it! Just, please…”

His words die off into a formless plea when Atem looks at him with real tears in his eyes, and Yugi knows, deep down, that it wouldn’t matter what he did. Atem’s body was despoiled in the final fight, his tomb long destroyed and plundered. Almost all the things his people would deem necessary for life after death are either ruined or impossible to obtain.

“Aibou…”- and _now_ Yugi cries, lets himself cry silently, as that old nickname rolls off Atem’s tongue, peaked with an accent he always thought but never heard. “Aibou…do not sorrow. I accept this. I have done my duty, I am…”

His shoulders shake, just a little, and Yugi feels suckerpunched.

“I am _okay_. This body is not mine, not truly. My name….Atem….is dead. Goodbye, Aibou.”

He turns to go, and something hysterical grips Yugi. He reaches out, and catches a corner of Atem’s jacket.

“Wait, wait!”

And Atem huffs out a shaky breath, as if trying to cling to his last reserves of bravery, which emboldens Yugi like nothing else could.

“Just…wait! Listen, okay?”

Desperately he yanks on the sleeve, and Atem turns back to face him.

“So your name is…is dead. Atem is dead? But…you have a body. The power from the Millennium Items gave you a body, and…”

Here his voice drops off, his grip slackening til the fabric slips from between his fingers.

“…and you did have another name. I knew you by it at least…and if I knew you by that name, and I knew your soul…doesn’t that mean it can be yours too?”

He’s grasping pitifully, Yugi is well aware of it, but he can’t bare the alternative. Then to his surprise, his outstretched hand is enveloped in another just like it, then his entire self is pulled into a tight, crushing hug.

“Yugi…I do not think it works that way, but…thank you.”

The warmly-accented words are murmured against his ear, are rumbled against his chest, are engraved in his flesh as warm fingertips trace aimless patterns across his shoulder blades. Atem, always taller, drops his forehead to Yugi’s shoulder with a shudder. Yugi feels him take a breath against his neck, maybe trying to catch a last waft of the fabric softener they had used for the past three years, and involuntarily shivers, coaxing a tiny smile out of Atem for a moment.

 

He feels his heartbeat, fast and strong. His hands grip a back that is so _intimately_ familiar, yet totally foreign, and he breathes in a scent like spices and ash that seems to cling to Atem’s hair as he presses his lips to the side of his head for a moment, like a parent trying to comfort their child. More than friends, more than…anything else, they were simply-

-the same.

One soul, two lives.

The thought echoes like drums in his head as he keeps himself pressed to Atem, giving the other man something concrete to lean on in a world that he just came into, smelling fennel and heat and sand, and so, _so_ many memories.

He’ll _never_ be able to go into a spice store again without having a nervous breakdown, he’s sure of it.

Atem clings to Yugi with a desperate strength, almost hanging off of him, and Yugi holds him up easily. Maybe their embrace lasted for a moment or an eternity, Yugi doesn’t know, there’s no time here, but however long it was it _wasn’t long enough._ There’s an empty feeling in his mind, his ‘soul’, where once it had expanded to accommodate another life, and a crippling loneliness that he can just taste on the air when his hands clench around nothing as Atem gathers himself, steps back, swipes a sleeve quickly across his face, and gives a last sad smile.

“Goodbye, Yugi.”

And… he’s gone, disappearing into the light, and Yugi can taste blood but he doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, _nothing matters…_

“Bye other-me, Atem….I’ll miss you. I hope you’re okay, wherever you’re…wherever you’re going. I won’t forget you…”

He takes a step back, and the door begins to close. The world fades back into reality around him, and his friend’s cheers are like daggers.

“…bye Yami.”

The light FLARES, bright and burning! The door bursts open and suddenly Yugi is bowled over as something comes hurtling out of the doorway and slams into him, knocking him backwards and sending him skidding across the smooth stone floor with the something sprawled across him.

As the walls crumble around them all, Yugi can’t quite bring himself to wipe the grin off his face, even as Yami staggers along beside, berating him the whole way out.

But he’s grinning too.

2.  **Hathor**

The day Yugi passes his entrance examination for University, Yami thought his heart would burst with pride. It was so soon after the ceremonial battle, just a few months, too soon Yami and Muto thought, but he’d thrown himself into studying like a fiend.

Maybe it was for the best, Yami thought, looking back. Those first few months had been…strained, as he and Yugi worked to learn each other again. Some things were mindlessly easy; in anything requiring teamwork -from cooking to dueling as a pair- they flowed like water around each other, predicting the other’s decisions and communicating with a glance.

Living together had been…not so easy. They knew each other so well, almost too well for two individuals, and while they hardly ever fought, there were moments of overwhelming emotion that had one or the other leaving for a walk. There was a trust there, but it was trust built off knowing the other person’s mind, not knowing them _as_ a person. They’d finish the other’s sentence, mirror movements, and even end up getting up to go the bathroom at the same time. It started to wear, before finally one night in an _exhausting_ screaming match over absolutely nothing, they both ended up staring at each other, panting and furious, before Yugi had first flopped to the floor, flipping him off and muttering-

“Asshole…you just liked me for my _body._ ”

-in such a frank, disgruntled way, that Yami can’t hold in the snort of surprised, slightly horrified laughter. Then he catches the smirk on Yugi’s lips, and that’s all he takes for him to lose it, eventually collapsing to the floor in laughter as Yugi first beat him with a pillow, then dumped a cup of water on his head, then finally caved in himself.

Furniture in Yugi’s bedroom was jammed together to make room for a second bed, and that first night after everything, after all the questions were done and everyone went home, they’d just sat there, sides pressed together. Both were stripped down to tank top and pants, and had barely blessed themselves with showers, too exhausted to do anything else.

Sometimes they made little comments about everything that had happened, or voiced a random thought, but mostly they were silent. Yami looked down at one point, when Yugi was deep in thought, and was surprised-not-surprised to notice that he and Yugi both had the same speckling of freckles on the back of their left hand. With a frown, he’d reached out and turned Yugi’s hand over, eliciting a grumble, and held up his own palm next to it. The lines were exactly the same, as far as he could tell. The only difference was in their skin tone.

“I saw it too.”

Yugi is staring at their hands with a strange expression. “Earlier I mean. When you came out of the shower. Our hair grows the same, we both have the exact same pattern of color in our eyes.”

Yami looks up at that, staring thoughtfully at Yugi’s face. He looks exhausted, haunted even, and Yami isn’t entirely sure he looks any better.

They fall asleep back to back that night, unwilling to be alone for even a moment. Some fears don’t shake off easily.

Now, four months later, it’s become a habit that Yami just can’t bring himself to care about. As Yugi bounds gleefully around the room, ricocheting off his friends before springing back to his laptop, Yami absently scrolls through listing after listing for apartments closer to the university.

They hadn’t even bothered to look at two-bedroom locations.

The public story was that Yugi’s cousin, also an expert dueler and strategist, had come home from traveling just in the nick of time, and helped Yugi stop the godawful games and creations that had been hurting the city. Now they were going to live together; Yugi to go to University and his ‘cousin’ to ‘reacclimate to the country’.

 Of course their friends knew better, but it was the best they could come up with, and people believed it willingly enough.

Yami was jarred out of his mindless clicking when Yugi slammed into him, squeezed him, and yelled, “I got in, I got in!” for the tenth time. Yami just smiled and wrapped an arm around his head in a quick hug.

“Yes you did!”

Then Yugi surged forward, pressed a sloppy kiss to his lips, and _leapt_ over him to tackle Honda when he came in the door.

Across the room, Anzu caught his eye and winked.

-

When Yugi wandered into their living room and handed him a glass for the fifth time that week, Yami thought he might explode if he didn’t say something.

“Why do you keep serving me?”

Yugi glanced up over the rim of his own cup, letting his textbook fall flat on the couch next to him.

“Hm?”

Yami shifted uneasily in his chair, fingering the edge of his shirt. He’d taken more to lose, flowing clothing than the tight styles Yugi preferred.

“You always bring me things, aibou. Drinks, food…you do not owe me anything.”

Yugi shrugged, stretching. Yami felt as though his eyes were glued to the thin line of skin exposed when his shirt rode up.

“I lived with grandpa for forever, Yami. He had trouble sometimes, so I just…started getting him things when I got them for myself. I don’t mind. I like making you happy!”

Yugi says it so easily, and it leaves Yami speechless. A hot flare of affection flashed across his thoughts, accompanied by a harsh possessiveness that he tamped down hard. Standing, he stepped around the low table between them and settled onto the couch beside Yugi, pressing himself to his side. The other man just smiled, and let his head fall on the taller’s shoulder.

Yugi was unnervingly aware of how much Yami craved any type of physical contact, especially when he was unsure of a situation and felt safe enough to show it. Millennia of disembodied existence had left a mark so deep and sure, Yugi was sure it was never fully disappear.

But right then, with Yami whispering, “Thank you,” against his hair, and his hand sliding under his wrist as he went back to his book, Yugi just nuzzled closer and went back to reading. Whatever came at them, they’d tackle it together.

3.  **Bast**

Yami is _disgustingly_ domestic sometimes, and Yugi is never sure how to feel about it.

His first hint had come a few weeks ago. He’d just gotten home from work at the Game Store (it was amazing how much money they made, now that the King of Dueling and his famed grandfather were drawing crowds of hundreds daily), tired from a day spent first at school then surrounded by customers, and had opened the door to, well…

Not the apartment he’d left that morning.

Yami and Anzu had left early together, loaded with bags and far too much energy for 6am in Yugi’s opinion. But Yami always rose with the sun, and Anzu had been ecstatic to find a thrifting partner. Yami was constantly aware that Yugi was the one supporting them, and so was enamored both with the idea of discount shopping, but also with a flea-market type set up so like the bazaar he remembered. Yugi had stumbled down from bed and squinted at them both as they pattered around the kitchen and living room making _far_ too much noise, only for Yami to come over, gently press a kiss to both cheeks, and shoo him back up the stairs.

He was bossy and vain, and a pain in Yugi’s ass, and Yugi felt himself grinning at the thought the whole way back to bed.

But that very moment, after a tedious day, he’d stepped through the door to find an _immaculately_ decorated apartment, and was slightly…puzzled? It had been sparce before, but only because Yugi was so busy and Yami had just been practicing existing for a while.

But _now…_

Yugi could only stare for a moment at the soft gold drapes and throw pillows that cast warm light on the white walls, the little statues placed here and there with deceptive carelessness, the artfully-faded tapestry hanging above the t.v. that leant the room a sophistication it just hadn’t had before. There were trailing houseplants in every window, and Yugi suddenly felt horribly outclassed and out of place.

It looked professional, and he felt every inch the awkward 19 year old.

Then Yami had come wandering out of the kitchen, shirtless and graceful in flowing slacks, and for the first time in their long friendship, Yugi had almost bolted from nerves.

Then Yami had stepped close, slipping his bag from his hand, and drawing him over to their table (which now had a lovely cream and gold swath of cloth draped over it, gods preserve him), where he excitedly showed Yugi his tally of the days spending, and where he and Anzu had gone.

Yami was a _mean_ haggler. He and Anzu had done incredibly well for themselves, and again Yugi felt very small and dirty. There was a gravitas to Yami, even as he sat there shirtless, pen in hand while he wrote out the days impressively-limited spending in beautiful calligraphy. He was...

Well, he was royal. He just _was_ , he was good at so many things that Yugi had no idea about, and people gravitated to the air of confidence and safety that surrounded him, and…and Yugi felt like a worm in comparison.

Then Yami had brushed his hair up into a loose knot on the back of his head, having left it hang styleless for once, and Yugi actually left the room, a knot of panic growing in his chest.

He made it to their bedroom, which _oh god_ was done up just as nicely, with deep crimson accents, and had collapsed against the window, breathing hard. It overlooked the river, and Yugi left the glinting light off the water draw his eye, trying to get himself under control.

Then, very quietly, someone behind him murmurs-

“Aibou? Yugi?”

-and he couldn’t stop the words from pouring out of him if he’d tried.

“Yami, why the fuck are you here with me? Why are you with some…some kid, some student that works at his grandpas crappy little store and can’t really do anything but play some stupid sport, and I just…”

He patters off, not daring to turn around, and the silence is soul-shatteringly heavy.

Then a gentle hand grips his shoulder, and a firm chest comes to rest warmly against back, and Yugi doesn’t even try to resist the urge to lean back against the other man, to arch against him and scratch his head against his shoulder.

“Yugi, who else would I be with?”

Yami is quiet, his words barely a murmur as they ghost over Yugi’s ear. Yugi takes a breath to answer, something like _anyone but me, literally anyone, you could have anyone in the world_ , but it comes out in a stuttering gasp when Yami presses a feather light kiss to the back of his neck. He feels more than hears Yami’s chuckle; damn him, so he _had_ been paying attention that time so long ago when Anzu hugged him at school, and her breath across his neck had left goosebumps and shivers in its wake.

Yami does it again and again, slower and with more savor each time until he’s little more than dragging his mouth across Yugi’s skin, the tiny touches of tongue and teeth making his mouth drop open in a silent pant.

This is the first time they’ve progressed further than kisses and gentle touches, but there’s nothing scary or unfamiliar about it. In fact, it’s almost too familiar, the way Yami gathers Yugi’s shirt in his hands and lifts it over his head, tossing it toward the clothes basket, as if Yugi had already known exactly _how_ Yami would do it, and had just been waiting in silent anticipation. Maybe in a way he already DID know, he thinks dizzily as Yami ghosts his hands up his newly bared sides and scrapes his teeth across the join of his neck and shoulder, the sensation shooting down his spine like wet heat, and he jerks his hips back against the other man. They had known each other completely, every thought and stray fancy, for upwards of five years, and it shows even in this.

Then Yami grips his hip with one hand, pulling him back to grind breathlessly against himself, and murmurs-

“I would be with _no one_ else but you.”

-and Yugi cries out, a pitiful exclamation of want that has him immediately horrified, but Yami hisses out a breath between clenched teeth and drags his other hand down the arm Yugi has braced against the window frame, gripping at the wiry muscle there as he ruts against him, and Yugi can only encourage him with tiny exclamations and groans, a heat building low in him.

Then Yami curses in a language Yugi knows-but-doesn’t-know, and slowly drops to his knees behind him, laving his tongue and teeth randomly across his shoulder blades and down, down until he’s on the floor and Yugi is a shaking, gasping mess, his forehead pressed hard to the window, his arms braced against the wall to either side, his length straining inside his jeans.

Yami tugs him, tries to turn him around but Yugi resists, too overwhelmed and desperately afraid that he’ll finish right there without a single touch if he sees Yami as he is. He doesn’t expect Yami to reach around and deftly unbutton his jeans, pulling them and his boxers alike to the floor in a single move, and he’s so shocked that when Yami first touches one foot, then the other, he just lifts them free of the fabric and finally turns when prompted.

Yami is staring up at him with hooded eyes, his teeth slightly bared and his chest heaving. He’s so close that his breath puffs out hot over Yugi’s dick, and when a strand of hair falls from its tie in to lay over his eye, Yugi automatically reaches down and pushes it back, and the softness in Yami’s gaze at that is enough to make Yugi’s gut clench. He mouths something, some oath or supplication or lovers murmur, and leans forward to drag his tongue from base to tip of Yugi’s length, then again, and again, until Yugi is truly whimpering deep in his throat, his hips jerking with each warm pass.

It’s only when he finally bursts out a broken, “Please!”, desperate, that Yami meets his eye again.

“Do you believe me, aibou?”

And Yugi practically sobs out a litany of, “Yes, yes, I believe you, I do…” that falls off into a breathy moan when Yami finally takes him between his lips. He’s a mess, one hand cradling Yami’s head like a jewel, the other dragging up the wall so hard chips of paint come off under his fingernails, as the other man slowly works his way down his length until his nose is brushing the skin of his groin.

Then he looks up, heavily-lined eyes luminous and wanting in the dark bedroom, and Yugi’s orgasm is _ripped_ from him, shocking him from head to toe with a shout, and Yami works him down gently, until Yugi practically collapses back against the wall, his knees quivering.

Then Yami stands and turns him, gracelessly shedding his own pants and nestling his own straining cock between Yugi’s cheeks, and Yugi can only find the strength to murmur encouragements and move with him as Yami writhes up against him, breath coming in gasps and pants as his hands roam over Yugi before settling up and around his shoulders, cupping them from behind, and it’s when Yugi whispers-

“Please, god please, Yami come on…”

-that finally Yami snaps, and he snarls as his cock jerks against Yugi, streaking up over his lower back and dripping back down between them. They stay there a moment, breathing hard, before Yugi shifts toward the bed slightly and instantly Yami follows, and they both stagger there and collapse onto the sheets.

After some rummaging around, they manage to lay themselves out draped over each other, limbs tangled. Yugi curls in against the taller man, working one of his legs between the others, a boneless satisfaction settling heavy in his limbs. But there’s a discomfort in his heart that makes him voice his thoughts, quiet in the dark bedroom.

“The place looks really, really good Yami. You did amazingly, it looks like a professional did it. I’m sorry I didn’t say so before…”

Yami just hums, absently picking apart the gelled spikes in Yugi’s hair and scooting closer. Yugi frowns.

“I mean it. I shouldn’t have walked out on you telling me about it, it was just…it was too much, and it was a long day, and…I’m really sorry.”

Then Yami reaches down and pulls him flush against his chest, his hand warm on his back.

“I didn’t mind, truly. But thank you. I did it for you.”

And Yugi blushes at this, a pink heat washing over his face that makes him bury himself against Yami’s chest, and a peaceful quiet fills the room.

4.  **Ra**

Yami loves makeup. He’s from another time, another culture, and there’s nothing Yugi can do about it but sigh at the godawful mess in their bathroom every day. The rest of the house is meticulously spotless except the bathroom, and Yugi can’t even count the number of times he’s wandered in to find Yami meticulously lining his eyes with a tiny brush and pot of eyeliner goo, the ‘good stuff’ as Anzu puts it. He used to just roll his eyes and wait, but now that they’re, um… _closer_ , as it would be, when he finds Yami delicately gripping the tiny brush he actually stays and watches.

And it’s impressive, he has to admit. Yami is obviously skilled, that much his unexperienced eye can tell. In long, practiced motions, he brushes the black hue onto delicate skin, a distant air to his demeanor that tells Yugi his mind is far, far back in time. The ingredients are different, the tools are newer, but the general idea is the same, and it’s enough to send Yami into one of his rare melancholies.

Yugi had, on top of his school AND work, been devouring academic texts on ancient Egypt every moment he gets the chance. He wanted to learn more about the history of his friend (lover), even if just to offer silent support and recognition. And while he’s been hesitant to mention anything, mostly from a crippling fear of being wrong and looking stupid, he feels the words fall out of him as Yami straightens with a sigh.

“Hey Yami? Would you, um…teach me how to write my name?”

Yami turns and gives him a funny look, but Yugi soldiers on.

“In…in your language, the way you’d have written it before. Teach me how.”

Yami had learned all he knew of modern language and the world from sharing Yugi’s thoughts, but the bond hadn’t exactly been equal in that both ways. Yugi knew Yami’s heart more than his mind, even when he’d regained his memory, and so had very little experience of Yami’s life. But if the stunned, disbelieving look on Yami’s face was anything to go by, Yugi had done well by trying to share in this.

Blinking, Yami gathered himself, then gestured around aimlessly.

“I…I have no paper or pen, but…”

Yugi tore his shirt off, leaving just the tanktop beneath it, scooted over to sit on the edge of the tub and stretched out his arm. He patted the toilet seat invitingly.

“Here, just do it on me with that. Please?”

And Yami, with more hesitation than Yugi had ever seen in him, wavered for a moment, then sat heavily, the tiny pot of pigment and brush still hanging between his fingers. He took Yugi’s hand, settling his arm in his lap, then easily wrote a flowing, curving line of text down his wrist. He paused, as if to let Yugi sit back, then in a rush, wrote out a second line in a series of shapes and foreign letters, then a third in what were plainly glyphs.

“That would be…your full name, as close as I can get it. In all three styles I was schooled in.”

There was a weight in the air that had nothing to do with a lazy Saturday morning, a reverence that left Yugi whispering.

“Say it for me.”

And Yami did, the sounds familiar yet not in a heavy accent that added drops where there were none, and a lilt to the end of his family name. It left his lips easily, a sense of comfort there that he didn’t have speaking in Yugi’s own language, and it left Yugi strangely affectionate and slightly aroused. He leaned forward, kissing him softly, then, as carefully as he could, took the brush from Yami’s fingers, dipped it, and copied the lines exactly as he could onto Yami’s own arm. It was slow, and he stopped constantly to make sure he wasn’t messing anything up, but as he finished the first line and moved onto the second, some distant sense of knowing filled him, and he could almost tell where the breaks between phonetics would be, could _almost_ recognize individual letters. Then before the third line he paused, meeting Yami’s eye as he stared at him with the strangest expression on his face, and set the brush down carefully on the tub’s edge.

“I wouldn’t want to…be disrespectful. I’ll leave that alone.”

Yami made a tiny choked noise, and reached out to pull Yugi into his lap, fisting his fingers in Yugi’s tank top. He’d thought he’d hidden his horror well, the times they visited the museum to see friends and he’d found butchered hieroglyphics plastered over the gift shop and tourists, nonsense combinations of sounds and disrespect to a language sacred for over two millennia. Oh how _angry_ he’d been, that rare, old fury rising up like sickness in him, that common, everyday idiots were buying and selling the language of his Gods like cheap tourist junk! But…that _was_ what it was now, he’d remembered with distant horror. A last stab from history, that thousands of years and millions of lives were diminished to a flyer and a gold-plated necklace.

How easily Yugi saw through him, saw past him, and he’d never even guessed. Even in this, he’d remembered Yami’s life before, remembered _what_ he once was, and neither feared nor scoffed at him for it, and it made him wonder just how much Yugi knew, or was trying to learn.

He didn’t realize he was weeping, silent tears falling down his cheeks, until Yugi made some soft noise of distress and held him tighter, murmuring nonsense. He probably didn’t even know that half of what he said was in Yami’s own speech, his soul remembering what his mind could not, and it left Yami feeling like a boat dashed against a cliff again and again until he was scattered across the sea.

When they finally roused themselves, cramped and tight from holding such an awkward position for so long, Yugi has smiled shakily and wiped his finger across Yami’s cheek.

“Now you’ll have to redo your eyes.”

Yami couldn’t bring himself to mind.

-

It was actually Anzu’s idea that found Yami on the floor a week later, parchment paper spread around him in a fan covering almost the entire living room. She’d been over a few days before and had found true reed pens and an inkpot online. Yami, after some internal debate, had ordered a set.

Now, he was meticulously writing down one of many random snippets of poetry he remembered in script, being sure to keep the letters straight and neat on the parchment. The door behind him opened and closed, but he didn’t look up until he’d finished the last stanza, then shook out his hand and stoppered the ink.

Yugi dropped his bag heavily onto the couch, and came over to stare with wide eyes.

“Yami, that’s _amazing._ How can you write so straight like that, it looks like it’s printed!?”

Yami shrugged, finding little smudges and noticing where he’d shaped some lines poorly.

“Ishizu suggested to the museum that I was an, how did she say…and _expert_ in Egyptian scripts. They asked for some pieces from me. It’s not so good.”

Yugi rolled his eyes, flapping his hand.

“Literally no one but you will ever know that it’s not good, trust me. What is it you’re writing, exactly?”

Yami shrugged, stretching his fingers.

“That is a love poem, or at least all I remember of one. These three are excerpts of rules given to Ph…”

He stopped at that, at the word that carried so much weight in his soul, but Yugi just nodded and said, “Pharaohs like you, yes.”, so Yami, after a moments wondering at Yugi’s ease, went on.

“Sets of rules, for justice and fairness, and this one specifically for punishments in various situations. Those two over there are just common songs, and I would like to do a few more of those sometime…”

Yugi gaped at him.

“You did all this in one day.” It was a statement rather than a question, and Yami squinted a little, unsure of Yugi’s tone.

“…yes?”

With a huff, Yugi knelt down beside him, gathered the now-dry parchment into a careful stack and placed it up on the coffee table out of the way, took the pen from Yami’s fingers and placed it with the inkpot, then grasped the back of Yami’s head and kissed him senseless. They hadn’t really been intimate again since the last time, and Yugi was being uncharacteristically forward, a trait Yami dizzly thought he might come to appreciate.

“Do you _know_ how hot you are?” he murmured against Yami’s lips, feathering kisses across his mouth, cheeks, eyes, nose, and back again like he couldn’t stay away. Yami reveled in the attention, letting his head fall back with a gasp as Yugi lipped his way down to the hollow of his collarbone. It sent a shudder through him when Yugi swiped his tongue there, and, smiling against his skin, he did it again, and again, and…

Somehow they ended up on the couch, and there was an urgency to both their movements that hinted at this going further than before. Yami was needy in a way he couldn’t remember ever feeling before, clinging to Yugi and tasting every inch of him he could reach, and Yugi was half drunk with want as he ended up on top, straddling Yami. They shed clothing as they moved, and by the time Yugi was pressed on Yami’s lap, they were both bare in the late afternoon light.

They moved together, slower, gentler, the same easy pattern of working off the other that they found in so many other aspects of life. Every time Yugi’s thigh brushed against him, already aching hard, it drew a gasp from Yami. Finally he surfaced from where he’d been sucking a bruise onto Yugi’s chest, and caught his eye.

He looked grave even through his obvious desire, and Yami just whispered, “Where?”. Yugi clambered off him and strode out the kitchen, giving him an _excellent_ view, and came back with a stoppered bottle.

“I thought oil would be more, uh, fitting than…than anything else.” he confessed, and Yami swore to the gods he felt himself get harder. He pulled Yugi back into his lap, embracing him like something precious.

“You are so good to me, aibou.”

To his joy, Yugi was _beautifully_ vocal in this. Yami lightly dipped his fingertips in the bottle, spreading the light oil over them, before slowly reaching under his lover and gently working him open. Yugi’s forehead fell to rest against his, his eyes clenched shut and his mouth dropped open, and it was all Yami could do not to groan at the sight. When Yugi began to move back against his hand, rocking his hips with his head thrown back, Yami couldn’t stand it. He pulled Yugi toward him and slicked himself to the point of dripping, easily supporting Yugi’s back as slowly, so slowly, he sank down onto him.

There was a poignant silence then, an intimate knowledge of closeness that held them both still for a moment, before Yami caved in.

“ _Please_ Yugi, please move…” and then he’d trailed off into his own tongue as Yugi, with a shattered moan, rose up and sank down again, a slow rhythm that made them both gasp desperately. Arching up into Yugi, cradling him with his body and arms, Yami was the first to whisper it-

“I love you…”

-and Yugi sobbed out a moan, first pressing a hard kiss to his mouth, then whimpering the same against his lips. Their movements quickened, hardened, until Yugi was slamming himself down over and over, with Yami doing his best to meet him thrust for thrust. The couch creaked, and the shadow they cast on the far wall was a perfect silhouette of their lovemaking, Yami distantly noted.

To Yami’s amazement, Yugi finished first with barely a touch to his own cock, arching over the taller man as he cried out, pressing his mouth to Yami’s shoulder and riding out the last shocks of pleasure in such a mindless, animal way that it struck Yami with his own orgasm, reeling and gasping as he gripped the other's hips so hard he was _sure_ they would bruise.

They’d stumbled up to their bathroom sometime after, gently washing each other under the warm shower, before collapsing for an afternoon nap into bed together. When they woke late in the afternoon, he caught Yugi tracing the word _love, love, love_ over and over onto his skin, and had felt so full of joy, he thought he might burst.

**Author's Note:**

> I may add more to this as I go. This was a happy-feely fic to get back into the swing of writing after some life calamities. Thank you, and feel free to find me on tumblr at beewritesstuff!


End file.
